Hello everyone, how’s your weekend going? I had a nice gathering and outing on Saturday which left me not much time to enjoy my weekend at home. But in some ways it was nice to finally go out and hang out with my friends whom I haven’t seen for the past 2 months. Usually we have a get together once in a month but as some already having kids, it’s getting harder and harder to accommodate everyone’s schedule.

Anyway let’s start from the beginning, shall we?

Remember the Red Palm Oil that I got couple days ago?

Well I surely didn’t wait much longer to give it a try by using it to fry my breakfast eggs! 😀

Do you see that wonderful orange color? Yup that’s the beta carotene from the Red Palm Oil. Let me tell you, the smell kinda reminds me of popcorn kernel…yeah go figure! At least that’s what my sense of smell telling me 😀

And since I got up quite late and everything got pushed back including my workout, I had a brunch as my post WO meal/breakfast/lunch.

Do you see how orange everything looks? That’s because I used Red Palm Oil to saute the cabbage “noodles” as well 😀

I also made some “warm” tuna melt with fool-proof homemade mayo. I said “warm” because I did warm it up a bit on the pan since I’m not a fan consuming raw eggs.

After we finished our lunch, we headed up to Hubby K’s nephew’s 5th birthday party.

The birthday theme this year is Angry Birds since L, the birthday boy is currently a fan.

I’m amazed with SIL who organized this whole kid party. Even the goodie bags for the kids are based on Angry Birds theme as well.

Now you know why we purposely had our lunch prior coming to the party since both Hubby K and I perfectly knew there wouldn’t be ANY Paleo nor Primal friendly food at the birthday party.

But I wouldn’t lie that I was tempted to try the ice cream, but decided not to until I saw what’s inside the ingredient (EVIL HFCS! and other unpronounceable ingredients).

After wrapped up, we had to help driving MIL back home so she wouldn’t have to be stuck at the kiddie playground way too long. It was quite a time crunch for us since we had to go to another birthday gathering in the evening. But in the end, we made it on time though!

We had an amazing AYCE (All-You-Can-Eat) Hot Pot!

A word of advice, when going to some ethnic restaurant, make sure to bring someone who knows the language so when you encounter a menu like this, you won’t freak out.

I mean, seriously, why can’t they provide a menu with an English in there. Basically, the menu only shows what kind of broth do you like in your pot. I specifically told my friend that I wanted the one within my reach was just plain broth and guess what, it was a wise choice!

Here’s our pot. Seems like my friend picked mushroom/chicken and duck broth for the one in front of me. There were total 3 pots on our table.

The waiter/waitress would come by once a while with a cart full of whatever stuff that you want for your hot pot. Typically, meatballs, fish balls, beef slices, chicken slices, pork slices and various veggies.

It’s pretty easy being Paleo/Primal when you’re having hot pot (or shabu-shabu as Japanese called it) as long you avoid all processed meat (meatballs, spam), noodles, tofu and the dipping sauce. Hubby K and I mostly ate the meat slices, veggies and LOTS of mushrooms without any dipping sauces. Yes, I LOVE mushrooms, especially Enoki mushrooms!

Another unique thing about this hot pot place, you can also get your own side dishes, which mostly were deep fried stuff like green onion pancake, greasy dumplings and soy and sugar laden preserved pig ears.

Well I shouldn’t be that harsh. There were some that actually could be Paleo friendly side dish, like these Steamed Custard Eggs.

But Hubby K and I were perfectly happy enjoying the fresh meat slices and we pretty much skipped all the side dishes. In fact, those were super oily and not worth to eat anyway. Even some others who picked those side dishes in the end didn’t finish them and became wasted. I don’t like seeing food being wasted so I just wish people could be a little mindful when putting stuff on to their plate.

Anyway, at least B, the birthday girl seems to enjoy our company…hopefully. The cake look awesome!

Lo and behold, I did have a piece of the cake and yes I enjoyed every bite of it although my taste buds protesting the overload sugar. I knew my friend G usually got a good cake from this French-Japanese bakery as usually their stuff aren’t as sweet as American ones, but this cake tasted pretty sweet for me. Maybe after not having that much sweets in my food lately, it surely changed my taste buds.

After we finished dinner, the ones with the kids had to head back home as it was getting late for the kids. For some of us, we headed up to 85° Cafe to have some drinks. Hubby K and I just hanging out with them. I couldn’t drink any caffeine (not even tea) at night and Hubby K isn’t the type who like to spend money only for a mere cup of tea.

But I did enjoy taking all these pastries and bread. Some of my friends bought some bread and I could only shook my head how sadly they were still trapped in this delusion of bread being something so luxurious to have.

They surely look pretty as window displays!

Overall it was nice to hang out with my friends again, but at the same time I felt a bit disconnected. Not sure if because we aren’t in school anymore so there wasn’t much common ground that we could talk. And some people already have kids and usually they tend to stick with the one who also has kids. Some are still single and usually they tend to hang out with another single.

So for both of us who are neither, it kinda put us in an awkward place. I know I shouldn’t think about this way as keeping in touch with long time friends surely not easy.

Sorry for being a little whiny, but it’s good to let these things out as keeping everything inside is not good for my health. That’s why I blog right? I can talk about anything and everything that I like.

How do you keep in touch with your long time friends?

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